impurity
by xsprinkledheart
Summary: Purity meant that she was supposed to have been cleansed of everything, that all was fixed. She was devoid of the colors once in life, the pain should have been leached away by now. So why was she still unsaveable?


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 **impurity**

 _colors disperse and fade to black and white._

Junko hadn't believed it when she had seen her own husband standing next to Chang'e of all people. She had planted her feet firmly on the surface of the moon, shaking her head in denial. It couldn't have been true. He may not have been at her side, but to be in cahoots with the enemy she was trying to fight? That was too impossible to be true. It must have been just a fleeting nightmare.

(She looked back now, realizing that then she should have recalled that in a world like the one she lived in, even a nigh impossibility would become a certainty).

She had held her ground in battle, letting spirals of danmaku weave forth as she concentrated every fiber of energy into standing her ground. She would not lose to her foe. But when her own husband approached her— the one she had shared too many smiles and tender exchanges with to count— she had faltered. Started to skid backwards a little bit as he hit her with a blast of magic.

Junko coughed as he and Chang'e moved towards her. She scrambled to get up, still dazed from her previous defeat. It was so highly unusual of someone like her to falter like this. She should have despised him by now for what he had done, loathed the man for leaving her side. She knew she didn't love him anymore, he was spirited away by Chang'e for too long to rekindle old feelings between them.

So why did she hesitate to strike him down? It would have been so easy to do so, right?

(At least her own son was still with her at the time. She had one last bit of impure color to cling onto for a lifeline.)

Her son had approached her that night when she tucked him into bed, asking her where his father was. When Junko shook her head and said that his father was on a long, long trip, her little boy looked her in the eye with hurt. "That's not true. Papa isn't coming back, is he…?"

He had sobbed for his father, wanting the missing piece of their family to be joined with them once more. And Junko could do no more than to clutch him in her arms and press him close to her, never wanting to let go. She could only murmur sweet reassurances that fell on deaf ears: words like "It will be alright" and "Don't worry". She had reached down to him and held him by the shoulders, letting him know that he still had his mother and she loved him. It wasn't enough, she knew, but her son needed her as much as she needed him.

She hadn't expected the gruesome scene when she had seen him holding the little boy by the hair, a sword held to his throat. Chang'e was absent from the scene, but her foul power still hung in the air. He had threatened her with words just as empty as her previous reassurances towards her son: "I won't hesitate" and "You wouldn't dare to forsake your own son". Her little boy refused to cry, thinking about how helpless and scared he had been in the past. He wouldn't show his fear now.

And then even when Junko had reluctantly consented to the deal, her voice cracking, she watched the gleaming tip of the sword slash at her son's chest, making him tumble to the ground as he reached out towards his mama— the one person who had helped him before suddenly so weak and helpless and unable to save him now.

She held the little boy's fragile body in her arms, cradling him in one last embrace. His blood-soaked chest shuddered with each laboring breath he took, trying to crane his head upwards to meet his mother's eyes. No. Junko would not let the tears drip down her cheeks, she didn't want her son to see her in this state.

'I must stay strong for him…'

She forced her mouth into a quivering smile as she planted one last kiss on his forehead. Goosebumps chilled her skin underneath her black robes, making her clutch her little boy. "Mama loves you," she whispered.

His face broke into a smile, brief sunshine through the rain. "I love you too, Mama…"

And then he felt so limp and cold in her arms. The rain had started pouring down, making her once colorful life fade to black and white…

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note to self: don't listen to music box version of the sea where one's home planet reflects because a. you will bawl your eyes out and b. you will waste ten more minutes of your life writing fan fiction when you should be focused on homework.

but junko is certainly an interesting character. while I myself have a soft spot for yuyuko, junko is still a character I can say I like. her patterns are too simple, but her story is really sad. so I wanted to expand on her life before she became so vengeful, or at least the time when her son died.


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